Saturday, October 25, 2008

Old Ballparks' Exact Positioning, Volume Whatever + 5: Baker Bowl

Just down West Lehigh Avenue from Shibe Park was Baker Bowl, home of the Philadelphia Phillies from 1887 to 1938. It was demolished in 1950. There was a huge soap advertisement on the 60 foot sign on the right field fence that read "The Phillies use Lifebouy." Legend has it someone once broke into the park to add "and they still stink."

This was another easy one to make the footprint for, since it's right on a city block. I even included the 60 feet of foul territory all around the field. This is also another park Google Maps has given a nod to with its name on its old spot.

This current building can be seen in this artist's rendition of the park. It's the one with six windows across, out past center field across North Broad Street. You can also see the same row houses across the street from the third base side that are there today on the Google satellite view above. (Though the building on the corner--Lehigh and 15th--seems to be gone.)

Another obvious feature that's still there today are the railroad tracks. They went under center field, creating "the hump" in the outfield. As you can see, the tracks still run underneath that corner of the block.

Go to the corner of Huntingdon and Broad in Street Views to see the plaque. (Better pic at bottom of this page.)

These posts on the locations of old ballparks are fantastic Jere. I went to school in Philly, and read a book about Shibe Park, and knew that it had been on the north side of town, but had no idea of the exact location. Always thought about going up to see the exact spot, but never got around to it. Terrible job by me.

I had no idea that Baker Bowl was right down the park from Shibe. I knew that it was always regarded as something of a joke, with really short fences that helped out Chuck Klein a ton. It certainly seemed to have extreme dimensions when I played it in Earl Weaver Baseball back in the '90's.

Thanks. TJ by me too on never checking out Huntington Ave Grounds/South End Grounds. Even though I've walked over their footprints without knowing!

Earl Weaver Baseball! Pat and I played it all the time at his house. It was either ahead of or behind its time, I can't remember which. We're talking about the computer game, right? But it wasn't for the home gaming systems, it was for regular computers.

Yep, Earl Weaver Baseball was only for computers as far as I can recall. I think I had both the PC and Mac versions. Pretty cheesy graphics, obviously primitive by today's standards, but still a lot of fun back in the day.